[Senate Hearing 109-538] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] S. Hrg. 109-538 HURRICANE KATRINA: WHAT CAN THE GOVERNMENT LEARN FROM THE PRIVATE SECTOR'S RESPONSE? ======================================================================= HEARING before the COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION __________ NOVEMBER 16, 2005 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 24-932 WASHINGTON : 2006 _____________________________________________________________________________ For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512�091800 Fax: (202) 512�092250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402�090001 COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman TED STEVENS, Alaska JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio CARL LEVIN, Michigan NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TOM COBURN, Oklahoma THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island MARK DAYTON, Minnesota ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico MARK PRYOR, Arkansas JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia Michael D. Bopp, Staff Director and Chief Counsel David T. Flanagan, General Counsel Amy L. Hall, Professional Staff Member Joyce A. Rechtschaffen, Minority Staff Director and Counsel Robert F. Muse, Minority General Counsel Michael L. Alexander, Minority Professional Staff Member Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk C O N T E N T S ------ Opening statements: Page Senator Collins.............................................. 1 Senator Lieberman............................................ 3 WITNESSES Wednesday, November 16, 2005 David M. Ratcliffe, President and Chief Executive Officer, Southern Company............................................... 5 Stanley S. Litow, Vice President, Corporate Community Relations, and President, IBM International Foundation, IBM Corporation... 6 Kevin T. Regan, Regional Vice President of Operations, Southeastern United States and Caribbean, Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, Inc......................................... 10 Jason F. Jackson, Director of Business Continuity, Global Security Division, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc........................ 13 Alphabetical List of Witnesses Jackson, Jason F.: Testimony.................................................... 13 Prepared statement with an attachment........................ 53 Litow, Stanley S.: Testimony.................................................... 6 Prepared statement........................................... 39 Ratcliffe, David M.: Testimony.................................................... 5 Prepared statement........................................... 33 Regan, Kevin T.: Testimony.................................................... 10 Prepared statement........................................... 44 Appendix Diageo and Humanitarian Relief, prepared statement............... 66 HURRICANE KATRINA: WHAT CAN THE GOVERNMENT LEARN FROM THE PRIVATE SECTOR'S RESPONSE? ---------- WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2005 U.S. Senate, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Washington, DC. The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m., in room 342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Susan M. Collins, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. Present: Senators Collins, Voinovich, Lieberman, Akaka, Carper, and Pryor. OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN COLLINS Chairman Collins. The Committee will come to order. Good morning. Today, the Committee continues its investigation into the preparation for and response to Hurricane Katrina. Our focus this morning, at our seventh hearing, is on the effective actions taken by the private sector before, during, and in the immediate aftermath of this disaster, and what Federal, State, and local governments can learn from the private sector. In the first hours and days after Katrina struck, drinking water, food, and other vital supplies poured into the devastated cities and towns of the Gulf Coast. Building materials, tools, generators, and trained personnel were brought to the front lines of the disaster to provide shelter, to reopen roads, and to restore essential services. This remarkable performance was not the result of a coordinated effort across all levels of government. Rather, it was the result of individual efforts by businesses large and small, efforts that were not directed by a central command, but rather by a common purpose. Not only were businesses able to recover and reconstitute quickly, but they were also able to provide supplies, equipment, and food and water to aid in the recovery of the local communities--something for which they should be commended. We are here today, however, to learn how they were able to respond so quickly and so effectively when government did not. At our hearing last week, we examined the actions of the principal government agency that responded with similar speed and effectiveness, the U.S. Coast Guard. As we will learn from our witnesses today, their businesses and the Coast Guard share some crucial characteristics that resulted in success. Like the Coast Guard, these businesses prepared for this disaster by learning the lessons of previous disasters and by configuring their disaster preparation and response capabilities accordingly. They prepositioned their assets and personnel out of harm's way so that they would be available to deploy as soon as conditions allowed. They brought in assets and personnel from other locations to assist. They anticipated the failure of conventional communications systems and took measures to overcome those failures. And perhaps most important, they empowered their front-line leaders with the authority to make quick decisions and to take decisive action. There is, of course, a fundamental difference between the Coast Guard and the private sector. The Coast Guard's core mission is to protect the American people. The core mission of a business is to maintain its operations and its ability to provide useful goods and services to consumers. But by protecting their assets and personnel, and by taking steps to restore their operations so quickly in the storm zone, these companies were positioned to help others and to serve society as a whole. Our witnesses today represent four business sectors that played key roles in Katrina relief: Retail, hospitality, power, and technology. Although their individual experiences differ, they share key success factors of strategic planning, tactical preparation, and front-line decisionmaking. As a result of those factors, Wal-Mart was able to use its massive and highly efficient distribution network to get needed commodities to those who had lost everything in the storm. Starwood Hotels used its extensive experience in hurricane- prone regions to become an invaluable source of shelter during Katrina, never completely shutting its doors and leading New Orleans hotels in returning to full operations. Mississippi Power is a company that, of course, was unable to move its assets out of the storm's path, and almost every piece of its infrastructure was devastated. Yet, because it prepared for just such a possibility, the company was able to get back up and running ahead of any reasonable expectation. Through extensive planning, IBM recognized that restoring communications would be essential in the aftermath of any disaster. From prioritizing expertise in immediate humanitarian relief to helping displaced workers find jobs, IBM's communications expertise has greatly assisted the recovery. The outpouring of generosity, the demonstration of competence, and the unleashing of initiative by Americans-- whether individuals or businesses--have been the bright spots in a story that has, in far too many other ways, been discouraging. The quick and efficient delivery of private sector relief to Katrina's victims was not, however, a matter of luck. It was the result of planning, preparation, and action. We have much to learn from the private sector, and we must do all that we can to apply those lessons to the operations of government. Senator Lieberman. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LIEBERMAN Senator Lieberman. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. Thanks to the witnesses for being here. I look forward to their testimony. Thanks, Madam Chairman, for convening this seventh hearing on our ongoing investigation into the preparations for and response to Hurricane Katrina. Today, as you have indicated, we temporarily turn away from examining the role of Federal, State, and local agencies and focus instead on the role of private companies that were prepared and uniquely positioned to help save lives in emergencies like this one, companies like those represented before us today. And, of course, we are focused, as you have said, also on what government might learn from what these companies prepared for and did after Katrina struck. In some areas hit by the storm, stores like Wal-Mart, Target, and Home Depot were virtual lifelines for dazed and bereft citizens who were fortunate enough to have survived Katrina's wrath. These companies and their employees became key distribution points for food, water, clothing, generators, and other supplies because they were prepared and because they had the capacity to do what they do every day, which is to move goods and provide services. Mississippi Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company, as you have indicated, was able to restore life-sustaining electricity to hundreds of thousands of customers well ahead of schedule, apparently in good part because it has a culture of empowering managers to make decisions free from bureaucratic authorization requirements and other entanglements. Starwood Hotels, which operates three properties in New Orleans, provided vital services to its customers, employees, and first responders during and immediately after the storm and was able to get its hotels back up and operating within days after the storm. I believe I saw you on CNN. Mr. Regan. You probably did, yes. Senator Lieberman. You looked good. [Laughter.] Mr. Regan. Tell my wife that. Senator Lieberman. And IBM, one of the world's leading information technology companies, has much to teach us in terms of how to harness technology to plan, manage, share information, and coordinate disaster-related activities better than government obviously did in response to Hurricane Katrina. We examine these stories today again to learn lessons that can help other businesses, but also can help the government be better prepared to respond when disaster strikes. I want to, Madam Chairman, make just one broader point here as we focus on the private sector, which is after September 11, as we began with a sense of urgency to examine how to protect ourselves, in that case, from terrorist attack, we became aware of a surprising fact, which is that the private sector owns 85 percent of our Nation's critical infrastructure, which is to say our communications networks, power grids, financial and health services, chemical plants, oil refineries, transportation systems, and the list could go on. These companies really form the backbone of our society and economy and, therefore, must be prepared in the national interest to respond to crises, and we must work with them in government to protect them at all costs. That is why we created an Infrastructure Protection Division, so-called, literally, in the Department of Homeland Security, which was the first of its kind at any Federal agency. The point was that the government needed to work with the private sector to make sure that systems so crucial to our lives and way of life are adequately protected, and if attacked by terrorists or, as we saw in Hurricane Katrina, overwhelmed by the forces of nature, we are able to recover quickly and restore services. Among the lessons reinforced by the witnesses that we will hear today is that it is the old lesson, but it is true in these unusual, in some ways unprecedented, times, there is no substitute for preparation, and that leadership is a key to crisis response, and in our day particularly, even more than always, communications are critical to response to a crisis, particularly, and I suppose self-evidently, by those who are on the scene, the ability to communicate. We also learned that the Homeland Security partnership between government and the private sector must be improved. In the final analysis, when the lives of the American people are at stake, whether from terrorist attack or natural disaster, we must unite as a team, as you and each of your individual organizations did, using all of the strengths of this great and extraordinary country, whether from public, private, or nonprofit sectors. We have to operate as one to get the job done. You did that, and I hope your testimony today helps us prepare our country to do better at achieving that kind of cooperation and unity of effort when the next disaster strikes. Thank you very much. Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator Lieberman. I am very pleased to welcome our panel of witnesses this morning. Our first witness is David Ratcliffe, the President and CEO of Southern Company, one of America's largest producers of electricity and the parent company of Mississippi Power. Mr. Ratcliffe has served as the President and CEO of Mississippi Power and has been with Southern Company's family of companies for over 30 years. Our second witness is Stan Litow. Mr. Litow is IBM's Vice President of Corporate Community Relations and President of the IBM International Foundation. Prior to joining IBM, he served as Deputy Chancellor of Schools for New York City, which is certainly an interesting background. I won't ask whether there is a particular link to disaster preparedness there or not. Mr. Litow. Just a little bit. [Laughter.] Chairman Collins. We are also pleased to have with us today Kevin Regan, Regional Vice President of Hotel Operations with Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide. Mr. Regan is responsible for Starwood operations in seven States and the Caribbean and is a 30-year veteran of the hospitality industry. We were talking prior to the hearing, and we decided that he has the best job of any of the witnesses today. And finally, we are joined by Jason Jackson, the Director of Business Continuity for Wal-Mart. Mr. Jackson, I am particularly interested to learn that you have undergraduate and graduate degrees in emergency and security management, and I will look forward to hearing how that background contributes to your ability to oversee your duties at Wal-Mart. Because we are doing an ongoing investigation, we are swearing in all of the witnesses who appear before us, so I would ask that you all stand and please raise your right hand so I may swear you in. Do you swear the testimony that you are about to give to the Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God? Mr. Ratcliffe. I do. Mr. Litow. I do. Mr. Regan. I do. Mr. Jackson. I do. Chairman Collins. Thank you. Mr. Ratcliffe, we are going to start with you. TESTIMONY OF DAVID M. RATCLIFFE,\1\ PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, SOUTHERN COMPANY Mr. Ratcliffe. Thank you, Chairman Collins and Members, for the opportunity to appear before you today on behalf of the Southern Company. I am David Ratcliffe, the President and CEO of Southern Company. Our company is a Fortune 500 company with 40,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity and over 26,000 employees. We are among the largest energy providers in the Nation, providing electricity to more than 4 million customers in Georgia, Alabama, the Southeastern part of Mississippi, and the Florida panhandle. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Ratcliffe appears in the Appendix on page 33. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hurricane Katrina was the worst natural disaster in the history of our Mississippi Power Company subsidiary and one of the biggest operational challenges that Southern Company has faced in its more than 80 years of existence. Katrina's 140- mile-per-hour winds and 35-foot storm surge left all 195,000 customers of Mississippi Power Company and 600,000 customers of Alabama Power Company without power. Nearly two-thirds of Mississippi Power's transmission and distribution system was damaged or destroyed. The company's second-largest electric generating plant was flooded. And its headquarters building in Gulfport was so damaged that it will not be fully operational until late next year. Our employees, with the help of many outside resources, worked to restore power across the devastated Gulf Coast region in a remarkable 12 days. Your questions to me were related to how we accomplished this. Let me hit some of the key elements of our successful response. First, extensive preplanning. Based on many years of experience that go back as far as Hurricane Camille in 1969 and continue all the way through Hurricanes Ivan and Dennis of last year, we have developed extensive storm response and restoration plans. In fact, each year, as part of our annual planning process, we actually rehearse or drill our restoration plans. In fact, in Mississippi Power Company, for example, each employee has a storm assignment. They know exactly what their responsibility is, and we drill that responsibility prior to each hurricane season. Second, we have a discipline of continuous improvement through rigorous post-storm critique. We learned much from Hurricane Ivan last year and its impact on our Gulf Power subsidiary in the panhandle of Florida that helped us better prepare for Hurricane Katrina. And, in fact, we are now in the process of debriefing Hurricane Katrina's impact in Mississippi and throughout the Southern Coast. Third, a bent toward self-sufficiency and front-line empowerment. Our Mississippi Power Company management team began 2 weeks before Katrina to prepare. By the time it hit, we had spent $7 million in securing equipment and logistical support and had staged 2,400 out-of-state workers on the fringe area of the storm to be ready to respond. Being a vertically integrated company enabled us to provide significant in-company support. All of this is how we were able to provide 140,000 gallons of fuel to 5,000 trucks every day, over 30,000 meals to workers every day, and to provide our own 250-person armed security force, and our own internal communications subsidiary, Southern Link Wireless, allowed us to continue to communicate even the immediate day after the storm. In fact, it was one of the only networks available to us. Next, as the song says, we had a lot of help from our friends. We received exceptional assistance from Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, who had the foresight to call a joint meeting the day after the storm with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, County EMAs, and Mississippi Power to share plans and communicate actions. This meeting was instrumental in the excellent coordination and cooperation between Mississippi Power and all agencies involved. In fact, we embedded one of our employees with FEMA and MEMA operations to deal continuously with issues as they arose. We had no instances in Mississippi of FEMA confiscating staging areas, fuel, or food. Through our industry mutual-assistance agreement, we were able to add 11,000 workers from throughout the United States, even as far as Canada, to our restoration efforts. Our suppliers provided significant support. In fact, we never ran out of supplies. And last but certainly not least, we have a strong culture amongst our 26,000 wonderful employees that is driven by teamwork and trust, superior performance, and total commitment to our customers. It is an honor for me to have the opportunity to represent them here today. Thank you. Chairman Collins. Thank you. Mr. Litow. TESTIMONY OF STANLEY S. LITOW,\1\ VICE PRESIDENT, CORPORATE COMMUNITY RELATIONS, AND PRESIDENT, IBM INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION, IBM CORPORATION Mr. Litow. Thank you very much. I am Stanley Litow, and I oversee IBM's corporate citizenship and philanthropic activities worldwide. Over the last 10 years, IBM has been one of the leading corporate contributors of cash, technology, and talent to not-for-profit educational institutions and government across the United States and around the world, and we are committed to applying our skill and our ability as an innovator against the challenges that exist in communities across the globe, addressing education and societal concerns and doing so in a fundamental and systemic way. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Litow appears in the Appendix on page 39. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- As a global company with over 330,000 employees and customers in more than 165 countries around the world, we have a unique understanding, we believe, how a single devastating event in one city in America or in one corner of the world can be destabilizing for us all. Natural and manmade disasters remind us just how interconnected we all are and how fragile our networks can be. But they also remind us how generous, how resourceful, and how focused we can be as a global community when we can put political, economic, and other self-interests aside and pull together, responding in a time of crisis, whether it happens next door or halfway around the world. We have a long-term and deep-seated commitment to corporate citizenship, and our work includes launching the world's first humanitarian public grid project to help find a cure for diseases like Alzheimer's and AIDS, raising literacy by finding a new way to teach children and non-literate adults to read, and making the Internet more accessible for seniors and people with disabilities. But through our experience, we have learned that corporate citizenship is exemplified most clearly in times of a crisis, and in the face of earthquake, hurricane, and an act of terrorism, IBM has responded immediately, working collaboratively with not-for-profit organizations and government and other private sector players to bring our expertise and our technology to affected areas as promptly as possible. You referenced September 11. After September 11, IBM was on the ground within 48 hours. We provided the communications network for the police and for rescue workers and not-for- profit organizations. We set up an infrastructure for communications systems, and we also provided a coordinated system to track services being provided to victims and their families after September 11. IBM has a Crisis Response Team that has responded to more than 70 critical incidents in 49 countries during the last decade. The team provides immediate 24/7 assistance, including international humanitarian relief, emergency management, and on-site services, as well as business services to government and business entities in the United States and around the world. After the tsunami hit in Southern Asia, IBM deployed over a 10-week period our Crisis Response Team and more than 700 of our employees, business partners, and customer volunteers across four countries, in India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Thailand. It was clear within the first week that the tremendous challenges faced by these governments as well as relief agencies, businesses, and organizations could be aided significantly through technology. So among the solutions we provided were open-source applications to address a complex set of needs, including the tracking and identifying of the missing, dead, and injured, as well as displaced individuals and orphans. We consolidated services to the United Nations, NGOs, private sector, and government information, and provided on-the-spot analysis and reporting systems because communications was critical there, too. We developed an organization registry, a camp management system, relief and assistance databases, logistics management, financial restitution tracking systems. In fact, we deployed a high-speed wireless data and voice transmission system and a range of equipment for mobile computers, services, hubs, and routers to specialized education solutions. And to help the countries become self-sufficient in managing the ongoing crisis, we trained thousands of volunteers and government officials on customized software applications. After our work concluded in Southern Asia, we left with a set of customized open-source solutions that we believe could be easily modified and deployed across other disaster areas, as well, and they included a relief material management system, a fund management tracking system, a victim tracking system, a relief camp management and I.D. card system, including biometrics fingerprint and photo identification, report generation, statistical analysis, a help line tracking system, and a range of systems that could be deployed and customized across the world in any disaster. Four days before Katrina hit, we opened our emergency operations center in Louisiana, and because of our intensive experience across multiple disasters in the United States and globally, after Katrina hit and subsequently after Hurricane Rita, and recently in Pakistan after the earthquake hit, IBM was able to deploy assistance more effectively and efficiently. IBM talent, technology, and systems were on the ground and on the ground quickly. After Hurricane Katrina hit, our goal was to deploy the crisis response team, locate it in Baton Rouge, to set up the Missing Person Reunification Project. A number of websites and local registries, including two that IBM hosted, one for CNN and the other for the Urban Broadcast Network, were helping evacuees and the public locate missing family members, friends, and colleagues. We worked with the State of Louisiana to implement the Entity Analytic Solution, a new IBM solution that integrated these different databases and made it possible to search for a single, unduplicated, up-to-date list of people to support reunification. We set up Jobs4Recovery with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce so that jobs for people who had been displaced could be posted. Individual businesses could identify what people that they needed, and people could use them in the not-for-profit or the government sector. For the American Red Cross, we set up a disaster relief self-registration Internet site. We designed it, we developed it, and we deployed it, working with the Red Cross. The Internet site captures and stores demographic and family data in a secure database through a user-friendly webpage. These are particularly helpful in moving forward with those who are affected by a disaster and can apply for benefits online. The Red Cross has the ability to validate information, check for duplication, and manage the application process. We worked for the Centers for Disease Control. We provided support to CDC, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to address health needs and assure that evacuees had access to their prescription records and care for both chronic illnesses and trauma resulting from the disaster. We set up an online curricula management application because students from New Orleans who went elsewhere needed information to their new teachers and new administrators on their standards and tests out of Louisiana so that teachers in other States and other geographies could keep track on where they were. We also provided trauma specialists, and we worked with them to train the teachers and welcome evacuees into their classroom and identified how to provide direct services. We worked with the City of Houston to develop an application to track and manage temporary housing and manage and assign individuals to appropriate facilities, and we helped Points of Light set up a volunteer website, volunteer.org. Obviously, things are far from completed, and the IBM team and resources are still at work in Louisiana. And while we are still involved, we moved several of those people to Pakistan to intervene after the earthquake. In recent years, IBM has learned a great deal about disaster relief. Let me summarize them. First, we can't predict disasters, but we can prepare for them. The degree to which we are able to do so can make a tremendous difference for the people and governments that move forward in times of crisis. As a Nation, we must ensure we have the plans, the resources, the people, and the technologies--we don't need to duplicate them--that are ready. Second, advanced planning of people, tools, and technology, formal agreements among public agencies and voluntary agencies to share information, be on common databases, to make decisions is vital and important. Third, in cases such as Katrina, September 11, or after the tsunami, rapid response is critical to the assurance of the safety of the situation. Basic communications systems are vital. They must be established and restored immediately so that local and regional officials can get the help that they need to be able to deploy on-site. Fourth, local, regional, and national governments, along with the private and the voluntary sector, must work collaboratively. Models and best practices are available. They are critically important to learn from, and technology isn't something separate that you buy. It is integrated into everything that you do. It is how you respond in times of crisis. It can only be effective if it is integrated into a set of services, operational plans and strategies, and prepared in advance. It is a most sobering thought to know that disaster will strike again, often without warning and always without regard for the people and places it leaves in its wake. If any good can come from a disaster, then it must be our ability to take the absolute best most effective practices from one situation and bring them to the next. We must be sure to customize our resources and be ready for the next disaster if and when it should strike. Thank you very much. Chairman Collins. Thank you. Mr. Regan. TESTIMONY OF KEVIN T. REGAN,\1\ REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT OF OPERATIONS, SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES AND CARIBBEAN, STARWOOD HOTELS AND RESORTS WORLDWIDE, INC. Mr. Regan. Good morning, Madam Chairman and distinguished Members of the Committee. I am Kevin Regan, Regional Vice President of Operations for Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide. Starwood operates 750 hotels worldwide, and we have three major hotels in New Orleans. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to participate in this hearing on behalf of Starwood to discuss how our company successfully met the challenges faced from Hurricane Katrina. It is with great pride that we offer this information so it may provide some insights that may be helpful to our government in managing future crises. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Regan appears in the Appendix on page 44. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Let me assure you that while we are proud of our accomplishments, we are also cognizant that the difficulties Starwood faced in New Orleans were of a much smaller scale than the entire region faced. In our frame of reference, however, the challenges were incredibly huge. The lessons we learned from Katrina, in our view, are the keys to successfully managing almost any crisis--planning, leadership, teamwork, and communication. After Katrina left the city devastated, we were the first hotels downtown with power, trucked-in water, air conditioning, and were the first hotels to open back up with restaurants. While some of the other hotels may have closed and evacuated their employees for weeks, we were able to accomplish those things because we had a plan, we had leadership, we had coordinated teamwork, and because we communicated. Post-September 11, we had to increase our focus on non- natural disasters and plan even more for the unexpected. Development of our new global crisis management plan involved dozens of Starwood executives worldwide and some key consultants. Starwood today has in place a comprehensive emergency and crisis management plan and a preparedness and response at the corporate, division, and hotel levels. It instills responsibility and authority at each level, and very importantly, it provides for ongoing communication throughout the organization and within the team directly involved in the crisis. At the core of all our plans are the mandates to always, one, do the right thing, and two, to ensure the safety of our guests and associates above all else. I spoke earlier of leadership being a key to successfully managing a crisis, and it certainly was with Katrina. I am personally humbled by the praise, but I share rightfully with many others at Starwood, including teams of corporate executives, area managing directors, local general managers, and other States that we were fortunate to have with us. Without any of these, we would be talking today of failure instead of success because in any crisis, the difference between success and failure is the quality of leadership. It is a dedicated team of knowledgeable people that can take the plan devised during calm and execute the elements of that plan during a crisis. A most critical element in success of leadership is empowering those leaders with the authority to act. At Starwood, the crisis plan provides for decisionmaking at different levels of the organization based on needs and appropriateness, and within the chain of command, authority is provided at the level closest to the crisis as possible with other levels in the chain providing support. For example, our team in New Orleans had full authority to order whatever equipment and services we felt necessary to deal with each need, including generators, water trucks, construction, clean-up crews, and more. Decisions to provide free housing and food to all evacuated associates for a month at any Starwood hotel in the country were made at the corporate level because it impacted the organization more broadly. And all levels jointly reached the decision to pay all New Orleans- based associates for 1 month of September regardless of where they were living after the storm. Those who could return to work in New Orleans to assist in recovery were paid double. Our plan calls for a series of actions. At the beginning of the storm season, we set up communications for all our hotels in the region to review extensively. We had check-lists of what must be done in the preparation time frame during the hurricane season to ensure we had overall readiness. As a possible storm approaches, our plan helps organize each hotel with the supplies they need to have on hand and the steps necessary to secure the safety of both our guests and associates. Once a hurricane warning is issued, we set up an emergency command center in each hotel that will give access to communications, and we begin daily communication between our regional recovery teams and our corporate leadership team and property teams and secure all needed assistance prior to the storm. We begin communicating with guests. We establish hotlines for our associates, and we establish a final list of guests and associates remaining on the property. In the case of Katrina, on Friday, August 26, we began a series of daily conference calls with the hotel management in New Orleans, our regional recovery teams on stand-by, and our appropriate corporate staff in White Plains. Our hotels began all preparations according to the plan, even though predictions then said the storm would miss New Orleans. For example, the Sheraton ensured that there was enough food and water for 1,000 guests for 5 days. Emergency generators were checked, along with supplies of diesel oil and batteries. Essential personnel were notified to be on stand-by. By Saturday, August 27, it was clear that Hurricane Katrina was headed for the city. Unfortunately, by the time the evacuation orders came, especially the mandatory evacuation on Sunday, despite our best efforts, there was neither ample time nor resources to evacuate many of our guests. Once it was no longer possible to evacuate, our priority shifted to ensuring the safety of our guests, associates, and their families within our facility. On Sunday, August 28, we transferred the guests from the W French Quarter Hotel to the W New Orleans, which had greater emergency resources. At the W French Quarter, we offered to house the Eighth District Police Command, which turned out to be helpful in securing the properties in the days to come. At the Sheraton, we had approximately 1,500 guests, associates, and family members, with another 600 at the W Hotel. I am pleased to say none of the guests, associates, or family members in the hotels suffered any injuries. While our hotels were taking care of hundreds of details that I simply don't have time to outline, our regional and corporate team had assembled the equipment, generators, power technicians, assessors, and recovery teams and positioned them in strategic locations for ease of transportation once the storm had passed. Dehumidifiers, diesel fuel, gasoline, and replacement supplies of food and water were all staged so we could bring them in once we assessed the damage. In most hurricanes, we anticipate more short-term loss of power and water, but the massive flooding of the city due to the collapsed levees created substantially greater challenges than we ever had faced before. We alerted our ground teams in Atlanta, where we had moved our sales teams, and the corporate office in White Plains regarding the need for temporary housing for our 850 associates and their families. On Tuesday, August 30, the rising flood waters created intense urgency to evacuate the remaining guests and associates. At the W Hotel, we found buses in Lafayette and still took more than 7 hours to get from there to the hotel to get the guests out. At the Sheraton, we thought we had found buses, but before all arrangements had been made, the water was too deep to move them. The team scrambled again to find buses, eventually arranging for 14 buses from two tour companies out of Baton Rouge. By 6 p.m., Wednesday, August 31, all our guests and most associates had been evacuated to Dallas. Neither the Sheraton nor the W Hotel at any time sent any guests to any New Orleans shelters or otherwise added to the burden of the city. In fact, we are proud of the support we provided to the city and Federal agencies during the time, including housing the Eighth District and the Fifth District Police and 400 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. On Wednesday, August 31, our corporate team arrived in New Orleans and immediately gathered at the command center to get the latest update and determine the priority needs and the next steps. Our corporate team surveyed the situation and began the process of releasing equipment we had staged, arranging for it to come to New Orleans--not an easy task. Thursday, September 1, we inspected each of our properties and found that security was the biggest concern, as lawlessness was everywhere. Out of concern for our remaining managers, I ordered the evacuation of all but five of our local management team. The W French Quarter was safe with the Eighth District housed there, but not the larger W New Orleans. As we pulled back from the W New Orleans to the Sheraton Hotel, we saw looters break into the hotel behind us. As part of our daily conference call with the corporate headquarters team in White Plains, we decided to contract with Blackwater Security. Their presence allowed us to return to the W New Orleans and move safely between our hotels. Also on Thursday, our big delivery arrived under escort with dehumidification systems to start pumping cool, dry air into our hotels to reduce moisture content and stop the growth of mold and mildew. On Friday, September 2, we had our first deliveries of generators from California, and we powered up the W French Quarter and lit up the New Orleans skyline with the first lights since the storm. On Saturday, September 3, we had our next shipment of generators arrive by 3 a.m. Sunday morning, we had power at the Sheraton on Canal Street. We contracted to have water brought in to fill our fire protection system and contracted with a company to pump the sewage out of the hotel so that we could then circulate water through, getting into our cooling towers and condition the air to prevent more mold growth. It was not until the middle of the next week that we were able to restore city electrical power at the Sheraton. By Sunday night, September 4, all hotels' exterior signage were lit up and a time of celebration for our teams. In the following weeks, there were continuing challenges, beginning with construction, repairs, exposed windows, removing wet carpets, drywall, and the detailed recovery work that allowed us to get back operating before virtually every other hotel in the central business district. We took in our first paying guests at the Sheraton on September 12, 2 weeks to the day after Katrina struck. To get the hotels operating again, a significant issue that we had to face was getting our associates back to New Orleans. As a hotel company, we had a significant advantage over other businesses in that we could provide a place for our people to live. I wish I had the time to talk about all the things that our incredible people did while we were there. In closing, the key lessons for our team were to have a plan and execute the plan well, which also means being flexible and creative, to expect the unexpected, and to rely on our people, and most importantly, communicate, communicate, and communicate. Leadership is more than taking responsibility for your actions. It is making the decisions when they must be made and not waiting for someone else to make them for you. It is having the decisionmaking at the ground level. New Orleans is a great city with such a rich history. It is, in fact, my birthplace, and its foundation is built on its people. The heart of the city isn't the Quarter or the Garden District. It is the people who live there, work there, and love there. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before this distinguished panel today, and I hope that what I have said will benefit the city that I love and help solve problems for the future. Thank you. Chairman Collins. Thank you. Mr. Jackson. TESTIMONY OF JASON F. JACKSON,\1\ DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS CONTINUITY, GLOBAL SECURITY DIVISION, WAL-MART STORES, INC. Mr. Jackson. Good morning, Chairman Collins, Ranking Member Lieberman, and distinguished Members of the Committee. Wal-Mart Stores wants to thank the Committee for its work that it is doing here and for holding this hearing today. We are very honored to be present and pleased to be part of this process. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Jackson with an attachment appears in the Appendix on page 53. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- My name is Jason Jackson. I am the Director of Business Continuity for Wal-Mart Stores. My department is responsible for mitigation, preparation, response, and recovery to all types of business disruptions globally, from natural disasters to manmade disasters, significant epidemiological issues, and security-related events, such as a terrorist incident. Wal-Mart is based in Bentonville, Arkansas, and our company employs approximately 1.3 million associates from all 50 States and approximately 1.7 million associates worldwide. Each week, over 138 million customers choose to shop at Wal-Mart, and we believe that reflects our dedication to providing everyday low prices to our customers. Wal-Mart doesn't just operate stores, clubs, and distribution centers in communities, though. We take a very pro-active stance in involving ourselves in those communities. And with crises being the discussion today, really, the sustainability of those communities is really near and dear to our hearts. Each of you has a copy of my written statement for the record, and I invite you to look at that as it is more detailed testimony as to what we did during Hurricane Katrina, but I will briefly sum up the highlights for you today. Being properly prepared to manage a crisis is critical to corporate sustainability, and the approach that we take to crisis management is similar to the government's. We take an all-hazards approach. And because of Wal-Mart's large footprint throughout the country, probability suggests to us that we will have to address crisis on a regular basis at a local, State, national, and sometimes global level. Before we start to focus on the hurricane, it is important to share with you that in the emergency management process, Wal-Mart really has three basic focuses that we look at, the first being the welfare of our associates; the second being continuity of operations and reconstitution of operations; and the third being community support, and these serve as the basis for which we build all of our plans. There are certain elements oftentimes that are specific to an industry or to a business that we feel are critical to success. Very quickly, these for us in emergency management are quick situation identification, knowing what is coming, and mitigating it as much as possible. Emergency structure, as far as having good and proper solid plans in place, having an emergency operations center that functions 24/7 to watch out for all of our facilities, and work on a proactive basis to try to mitigate and prepare the company for potential business disruptions and then also to orchestrate the response and recovery when those do occur, and also having good communications processes. Having scalable and flexible operations, operations that can change with the variables that present themselves as they unfold in a disaster, operations that are capable of growing in size, consummate with the level of the disaster. Just as important is total company support, again, having that balance between the strategic that may be coming from the home office, but also the tactical and the autonomy of the managers at the local level to make decisions that are the best for the community and for the situation at hand. Having efficient communications, and I am not just saying communications, which we know is key to success, but efficient communications in the way that we transmit information from the field, collect it into a big picture, and then disseminate that back out so that we can take the best action points. Also, leveraging our strengths. Each of us that sits here before you has strengths in our company. For us, one of those things is moving things from point A to point B very efficiently and effectively. We do it every day, as Senator Lieberman said, so capitalizing on these strengths becomes very important during a crisis. Some of the other strengths that we have is our information systems and how we utilize our technology to know what the consumer and the communities are going to need pre-disaster, if we are offered that opportunity, and then also post-disaster to make sure that those people have what they need to properly recover from whatever situation just occurred. Our logistics system, of course, is very robust, and we have over 100 distribution centers and thousands of trucks, but they operate in a very coordinated fashion. This also includes eight distribution centers that are reserved with disaster merchandise, square footage that is set aside just for merchandise should a crisis occur. Also, understanding the big picture, and while we talked about Hurricane Katrina and the impact that it had on the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, it is important to note that there is the rest of the Nation that we still have to look after while the crisis is occurring, so understanding what the needs are and making sure that the needs are met for those people in the other portions of the country. And finally, our corporate culture as one of the key elements. We teach people to strive for excellence and to do the right thing, and most importantly, to be active participants in the situation and not just sit on the sidelines. For us in Hurricane Katrina, things really began when the storm developed into a tropical depression. Most people think, a lot because of the news media, that the hurricane was more about Louisiana and Mississippi and the second impact that it had, but we had a significant investment in Southern Florida that we had to look after, as well, as far as our associates and our stores and facilities and operations. So looking at August 23 is really when our operations started, and from there, the response that was kicked off as far as the merchandise that was dispatched into the stores for the communities, these teams that were staged, the generators that were staged, and all the other preparative and mitigative actions that were taken prior to that initial landfall. Once the storm moved out of Florida, we had to look at then a recovery operation and community support operation in Florida, at the same time preparing for the second landfall in the Gulf States. With that, as the storm moved ashore, it was actually our moment of peace and quiet because there was nothing that we could do at that point in further preparing for that storm. But as soon as that storm passed through in the Gulf States, we immediately found ourselves operating on a number of fronts. We found ourselves taking care of our associates and making sure that they had food and water, and we are talking about 34,000 people that were impacted related to our company, and with that, making sure that they had money and that they had a job to go to. We operated in restoring our facilities and reconstituting our own operations. We had 171 facilities that were impacted in the Gulf States and in Florida, and with that, we were able to reconstitute operations up to a level of 66 percent within 48 hours after landfall, and then in 6 days, up to 83 percent. With that, we also had to provide community support and relief in liaising with local agencies, finding the needs, working with the NGOs and other private sector entities to make sure that the communities were supported. We sheltered police officers. We fed and clothed people in communities and in the emergency services located in the immediate impact zone. We provided resources across the region. We dispatched generators and provided power to places that didn't yet have power during the early days, and in some cases continue not to have power. We provided communications by dispatching in our systems teams to provide temporary satellites that restored network and voice communication, and the list goes on as far as the actions that we took in the immediate area. But one of the fronts that people sometimes don't discuss or think about is what happened in the peripheral. At the same time that we were providing support to the immediate, we were also providing support to the States that took in all the evacuees. We saw a mass population shift during Hurricane Katrina, and it became evident that we would need to help and be that support mechanism to those States, to those shelters, and to the communities in the peripheral States. And in that, we saw ourselves doing things like setting up donation centers, for instance, at the Astrodome in Houston or at Fort Chafee in Arkansas, and with that, a tremendous amount of other actions that we took as a company, including setting up a web locator website that had over 53,000 posts and 5 million hits, provided computers to 150 shelters, provided mobile and temporary pharmacies to help with the pharmaceutical needs of evacuated populations, and so forth. There were just a few key lessons as you read through my testimony that you will come to find, and I think they are very universal, communication being No. 1, internally and externally, how we communicate with each other, institutionalizing the process of emergency communications between the public and the private sector. Also, development of expectations is also a key point in making sure that we understand each other, both across the private sector and across the public and private sector and the NGOs and the other entities that are involved, to make sure that we are developing solid plans based upon good information from each other about what FEMA is going to do or what the State agencies are going to do or what Wal-Mart is going to do or what we are capable of doing and what our limitations are. Additionally, learning from those that know. We know that we don't know everything. We know that there are best practices out there in government and in other areas of the private sector that we can learn from. But at the same time, we can be a teacher, for instance, our logistics systems, as you mentioned. And then partnering for success. Emergency management and response to emergencies has to be a comprehensive effort on the part of the private sector, the public sector, and the NGOs and other entities that are involved. In life, there are certain absolutes. One of those absolutes is the fact that we will face another major crisis in the future. Whether it is a natural disaster, a manmade disaster, a significant pandemic event, or a terrorist event, we will all be required to respond again, and whether we are successful or unsuccessful depends wholly upon whether we learn the lessons that we are talking about here today and whether we continue to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves. I thank you for your time and allowing me to speak on behalf of Wal-Mart. Chairman Collins. Thank you very much for your excellent testimony. As I listened to each of you today, I was struck by the meticulous planning and the escalating series of actions that you took in advance of Katrina making landfall. It contrasts so sharply with the lack of planning and the slow response of FEMA, which sent only one person in advance of Katrina's striking New Orleans to be in the city. Mr. Ratcliffe, I think you said in your testimony that you start taking action 2 weeks prior to a potential storm, and then you track it every day and adjust accordingly. You talked about in the case of Katrina that you had activated your disaster plan with 20 storm directors implementing their clearly understood responsibilities, and you talked about that by the time Katrina struck, you had already spent $7 million in securing equipment and logistical support. Mr. Jackson, I think you said in your testimony that by August 23, you were already preparing and tracking Katrina. Mr. Regan, I want to ask you, when did Starwood decide that Katrina was a threat to your operations to which you might have to respond? Mr. Regan. Well, early enough, we had Katrina coming into the Southern part of Florida, which is also part of my region, so we were dealing with that prior to probably about as soon as the storm was named, which was a few days in advance. It was a Category 1 when it came across South Florida, and I think that from that perspective, as it went across, we were already planning in New Orleans. We had planned for a long time in New Orleans because of the situation there with being below sea level and everything else. We have all our game plans at the beginning of the season, which is June 1, we have all our preparedness in place, and what happens is as soon as a storm is named, we start tracking it from that point. Chairman Collins. Mr. Litow, same question for you. Mr. Litow. Yes. We started our planning several weeks in advance, 2 to 3 weeks in advance, and we deployed our emergency response team, our crisis response team, on-site 4 days in advance of it hitting. Chairman Collins. To me, that is such a fundamental difference in the private sector response versus government's response. On what information did you rely to start to implement your plans? I think I read in your written testimony that some of you actually have private meteorologists. Mr. Ratcliffe. Mr. Ratcliffe. That is correct. We use a contract meteorological service. It is the most important information in trying to get prepared for a storm, to figure out how intense it is going to be and where it is going to go, and that is often very difficult to project. When you have a major service territory, like Mr. Jackson and I are talking about, and even Mr. Regan, the challenge in trying to be prepared at the right place at the right time is not insignificant. So having good meteorological data is an absolute necessity. Chairman Collins. Mr. Jackson, does Wal-Mart also have a private meteorologist service? Mr. Jackson. We do. We contract with a consulting company that provides that data, but we also utilize the National Weather Service, National Hurricane Center data, as well. We are looking at the storms, particularly for hurricane season, back when they are tropical waves and they are not even a depression yet so that we have an idea of, this may be coming in the next 10 days. So we try to go out as far as possible to make sure that we are taking the proper actions and watching those storms closely. Chairman Collins. Another aspect that you all have in common is you were able through ingenuity to maintain communications with your employees or with the managers during the storm. Mr. Regan, I want to ask you, however, what communications were like from your perspective with the local and State Government and with the Federal Government, as well. Mr. Regan. I guess the easiest way is there was a lack of communication totally on the outside. We would find out information that was being transferred around the city through the local police department that was in the hotel. During the course of time, for about 3 or 4 days, there was absolutely no communication whatsoever. There was no support from a standpoint of military or anything else downtown that we saw. The flood waters, all we would hear from the police were that the flood waters were still coming up, which they never came up any higher than where we were. We sat a little bit higher than everybody else, so we had a little water probably on the street and that was about it. But from a communications standpoint, we did not hear anything. The Mayor did have a hearing at the hotel about 4 days, 5 days after the storm, but he wasn't there. I think it was one of his representatives or a spokesperson came to talk about just what things were going on and what they were trying to do. The one key thing that I think in any crisis or anything that you look at is leadership, and the sad part about it in New Orleans is there was no visible leadership anywhere. The police department, they had no leadership. They had lost their precinct. It was underwater. Seeing anybody from the Mayor to the Governor to the President not there in the first few days left a lot of things for people to say, who really cares what is going on? And it also left anarchy in the city. It was very chaotic. From my perspective, and strictly the way that we did it, we hit the ground running. We got there as soon as the levee broke, and we had plans going in there anyway, so we were all set. We hit the ground running. And the thing was, we were there talking to people and the media was there, and there were people that were looking for stories that they could get out that were positive. Of course, there were a lot of negatives, but I think the key to everything is leadership. And communication-wise for us, we went in with satellite telephones, but our team in the hotel was able to get us up and operating right after the storm. So we were down for maybe a couple of hours at the most. Chairman Collins. That is very impressive. I think it was the Fortune magazine piece that was entitled, ``As Government Broke Down, Business Stepped Up,'' and I think what you have described is exactly what happened. Thank you. Senator Lieberman. Senator Lieberman. Thanks, Madam Chairman. Thanks to the panel. This is very encouraging, I suppose even inspiring testimony, which I hope we learn from. I will say to you that the one Federal agency that we feel very proud of in its response, and in some sense mirrors, or maybe you mirror them, was the Coast Guard. They responded to the weather signals. They did so much of what you have done. They moved their personnel out of the immediate danger area. They brought in more personnel from around the country, and they were right there within hours of landfall to start rescuing people. Madam Chairman, I really want to briefly put a statement in the record.\1\ These four companies are models, but there are a lot of other companies who jumped right in and helped out. I just heard a report, and I had my staff write it down, Diageo, a distilled spirits company, happens to be international. It is London-based, but it has its North American headquarters in Norwalk, Connecticut. Four days before landfall, they moved power generators and water, not distilled spirits---- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Diageo and Humanitarian Relief appears in the Appendix on page 66. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chairman Collins. I thought you were going to say they sent much-needed alcohol to the region. [Laughter.] Senator Lieberman [continuing]. To Baton Rouge. I was struck in the report because Senator Collins and I visited Pass Christian in Mississippi, but it happens that one of those big generators ended up in Pass Christian, and so thanks to all you other folks in the private sector who really did well. Senator Collins' first few questions really got to part of what I wanted to talk about. The breakdown of communications here was really unsettling at the government level. Is there anything else any of you want to tell us about how you were prepared to maintain your communications so critical to the way you functioned in a disaster? Mr. Ratcliffe, you made a very brief reference that I wanted to have you build on a little bit. Mr. Ratcliffe. Thank you, Senator. We are fortunate in that we actually operate a subsidiary company that is a wireless network and a dispatch mobile radio. We operate it as a requirement for our own core business, but it has incremental capacity that we sell in the marketplace, also. It is basically exactly the same Motorola technology that Nextel sells commercially and we sell in our footprint. We own and operate that subsidiary and its infrastructure, and it is absolutely critical to our success and day-to-day operations. On day one after the storm, it was the only network available to us, and I cannot emphasize how important it is (one of the lessons we have learned) for the first responders to be able to communicate with each other. Senator Lieberman. Right. Mr. Ratcliffe. That is an absolute necessity, and one of the things we have to do in this Nation is to build in the capability in these kind of restoration efforts for first responders to communicate. Senator Lieberman. We are going to bring you back, Mr. Ratcliffe, to testify on behalf of a bill that Senator Collins and I have that does exactly that, but thank you. Mr. Ratcliffe. We were the only folks who had the ability to communicate---- Senator Lieberman. Why was that? What happened to the other networks that you were able to avoid? Mr. Ratcliffe. Well, first of all, we were somewhat lucky. I would be remiss if I didn't say that. Second, our design criteria, because of the business we are in, are more rigorous than other networks. And third, we stood the test in keeping our systems running. There were some situations where the other providers did not have adequate backup generators, did not fuel their generators---- Senator Lieberman. So that once the electricity went out, the towers, for instance, were not working? Mr. Ratcliffe. In some cases, the towers were down. Senator Lieberman. Or they were down---- Mr. Ratcliffe. In other cases--understand that electricity drives everything that we do. Senator Lieberman. Right. Mr. Ratcliffe. Even the switching networks require electricity. So we have to have backup generators for the switching stations and the communications network. To the extent people don't have backup generators or don't provide fuel in an extended fashion then they are going to fail. Senator Lieberman. Let me ask this question. One of the most poignant stories that came out, for me, of New Orleans was the picture of Mayor Nagin in a hotel room, no communications ability, one staff member has a personal computer, and over that computer, they hooked into one or two or three--or I think it might have been six or seven--phone lines, and that is it for the Mayor of New Orleans, I think it was Tuesday. It wasn't even Monday, the day of landfall. From your own experience, what should New Orleans do as it rebuilds to make sure that never happens again? Mr. Litow. I think, first and foremost, you need a communications plan and strategy in advance. There are two things that are involved here. One is restoring communications, and we provided for a whole range of government and non- government agencies after September 11, and after the tsunami a communications network that people used. Senator Lieberman. You mean that you actually brought in yourself? Mr. Litow. Yes, we did. The second thing that you can do is you can make sure that through collaborative software, the variety of information systems can work with one another. That is a second and more difficult issue. After the war in Bosnia, for example, refugees came over the border in a variety of different sources, and they went into a variety of different camps. Because of not having one collaborative software system, they couldn't locate people when they came to different places. So when you have a core base of information about a victim being served by a variety of different agencies, you have got to have an integrated system so that people can understand who needs what services and everybody can have the same information, and it is not all that difficult to get everybody operating on the same page. Senator Lieberman. Mr. Jackson, my time is almost up. Just give me a few words about how Wal-Mart prepares itself to continue to communicate in a crisis like this. Mr. Jackson. One of the things, and I think we face the same challenges that a lot of people face when you lose telephone lines and you lose cellular towers and such, and to kind of add on to what Mr. Litow was just saying, is to have a backup plan, also. Having a good communications plan is fine, but having a backup plan that is separate from that system, that is tested and---- Senator Lieberman. Were you able to continue to communicate from Bentonville to your people in the Katrina-hit area during the storm? Mr. Jackson. Yes and no. There were periods of blackouts, for instance, and that is when you have to rely on different systems, like associate accountability. I am going to go down the road and check on the store, and if I am not back in an hour, please send someone for me. Having that accountability process is much more mundane and fundamental, but still serves the same purpose. Senator Lieberman. What is your backup system? Mr. Jackson. Our backup system is tactically sending in as quickly as possible our temporary satellite systems that have voice-over phones. Senator Lieberman. Just a final question. The two of you that have the most presence here--maybe I am not being fair to IBM--in New Orleans, as you watched the weather forecasts coming in, did your emergency plans include preparation for response to the possibility of the levees breaking and flooding occurring, or were you planning simply for response to a bad hurricane? Mr. Regan. We had plans--from Starwood's perspective, ours was basically a plan for the hurricane, and we do have flood plans, also. So we knew exactly what we were doing. We knew that we were in trouble from the levee standpoint. If it was going to hit and it was going to be to the west of the city or to the east of the city, we were going to get hit no matter what. It was going to flood. So that has been part of our preparedness---- Senator Lieberman. So flooding was part of your preparedness for New Orleans? Mr. Regan. Yes. Mr. Jackson. And ours would be the same. We have a flooding policy in general as far as emergency procedures go. So we knew that we were going to be looking at a potential flooding situation in New Orleans and responded accordingly. Senator Lieberman. Thank you. Thank you very much. Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Voinovich. Senator Voinovich. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thank you for holding this hearing and for your continued investigation into the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I am particularly interested in today's hearing, based on my conversations with many private business executives. They have expressed deep frustration with FEMA in getting their respective jobs done. I believe there is much that the Federal Government can learn from the private sector in terms of best business practices and streamlined response in the event of an emergency. We have heard that sentiment reiterated here this morning. I believe that in order for our response to Katrina to be effective, we must have a clearly defined role for the private sector. If we expect to be successful, we will need a robust public-private partnership. I find it troubling that in some instances, private sector companies were prepared to respond swiftly to the devastation on the Gulf Coast, while the response from all levels of government were mired in bureaucracy. I am frustrated by the Federal Government's seeming inability to manage offers of assistance from the private sector. Additionally, I understand that there were a number of reports that FEMA could not even pay contractors who were already helping with reconstruction in a timely fashion. Madam Chairman, I wish that FEMA representatives were here so that they could hear some of this testimony today. The first question I want to ask is, to date, has anyone from FEMA or the Department of Homeland Security contacted any of your companies to get your perspective on the topics we are discussing here today? Mr. Regan. Not with Starwood at this point. Mr. Jackson. At a lower level, yes, we have had some representatives, some of the alert networks from Department of Homeland Security come and benchmark with us this last week. Senator Voinovich. Mr. Litow. Mr. Litow. We do work for FEMA and for other Federal agencies on particular contracts, but in terms of the overall coordination and planning and advance knowledge, most of the advance communication and contact with Federal agencies doesn't take place because people feel that they are precluded for them bidding on contracts. So there are certain intricacies in the bidding process that make it difficult for businesses who are expert in this area to be able to have pre-planning conversations and discussions that run across a variety of areas with government agencies. Senator Voinovich. Mr. Ratcliffe. Mr. Ratcliffe. Senator, I am not aware that we have been contacted. Senator Voinovich. If the Department and Secretary Chertoff were to put together a task force to look at the way FEMA interacted with and tapped the private sector, would you be willing to serve on that task force? Mr. Litow. Absolutely. Mr. Regan. Absolutely. Mr. Jackson. Yes. Mr. Ratcliffe. Yes. Senator Voinovich. Mr. Litow, it sounds as if in response to Katrina you accomplished quite a bit. Of the eight areas that you mentioned in your testimony--how many were addressed after Hurricane Katrina hit? Were any actions taken before the hurricane made landfall? Generally, I'd like to understand what assets were in place prior to landfall. Were these preparations made by Homeland Security or FEMA in order to be ready to respond to a hurricane? Mr. Litow. Virtually all of the software tools that we deployed were pre-prepared in a variety of different disasters, and we refined them after September 11, after the tsunami, so that when we sent our people on the ground after Hurricane Katrina, we were able to do a demonstration of a set of software applications that could be used by State agencies, Federal agencies, or voluntary agencies---- Senator Voinovich. The question I have is, how much of your preparation was in conjunction with FEMA? Mr. Litow. In some cases, it was in conjunction with FEMA. In some cases, it was in conjunction with the State of Louisiana. In some cases, it was working directly with voluntary agencies or school systems in a variety of different States. Senator Voinovich. I would be very interested if you would clarify the answers to the questions I have about the eight areas that you have listed here. Please provide me with information about how much of the preparations were in place as part of FEMA's work with you? Did you have a contract with FEMA? How many of the assets were established in a reactionary fashion that occurred when you arrived on the ground? Mr. Litow. Most of them were customized on the ground. Senator Voinovich. In other words, they just happened, and you had the capacity to do it because of your previous experience? Mr. Litow. That is correct, Senator. Senator Voinovich. Who called upon you to do the things that are listed here? Mr. Litow. Well, we worked on the ground, and we did demonstrations for a variety of agencies of what we had and what we thought we could do, and then we asked them to pick and choose---- Senator Voinovich. What agencies were those? Mr. Litow. The State of Louisiana, State Government, city government, school system, FEMA, Red Cross, and the Salvation Army. We presented those solutions to a variety of different agencies. When we work internationally, we present them to international agencies. After the tsunami, we presented them and showed them at the United Nations. So they are available. They can all be viewed. The people can determine which are most applicable, and they can be customized in any case. It has nothing to do with whether it is a hurricane or another kind of disaster. The core systems are universal. Senator Voinovich. And does FEMA, or did FEMA have a list of your capabilities to share those with people who might need the services? Mr. Litow. I can't answer that. They had some of the information, but not all of it was shared. Senator Voinovich. Have any of you had contracts with FEMA? Mr. Regan. Yes. Mr. Litow. Yes. Senator Voinovich. How has that worked out for you? Mr. Regan. We have a contract for guest rooms at the Sheraton New Orleans for 750 rooms a night. Senator Voinovich. In terms of the management of the contracts and the payment for services, how has the process worked? Mr. Regan. No issues. Mr. Litow. We have a subcontract, three contracts with FEMA, and everything has worked fine. Senator Voinovich. Thank you. Mr. Jackson. One of the issues that arose for us was the early identification of the payment processes. We are not a normal contractor with FEMA. During hurricanes and other disasters, we will be asked to provide certain resources that we have available to us. But one of the processes that we ran into was, and again, in the development of expectations, like I talked about, not necessarily having the request come from a purchasing agent, which created some problems for us on the back end. So I think that the further development of those expectations and communications is what is going to preclude that from happening in the future. Senator Voinovich. Thank you. Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Akaka. Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. I am pleased that you are holding today's hearing, and I must tell you that I was struck by the impressive contributions of the private sector during Hurricane Katrina. I also saw that when I toured the Gulf Coast States with members of the Energy Committee in September. It is important that we learn from the experiences of private companies as we determine how to best improve the Federal Government's emergency management capabilities. Senator Lieberman mentioned, and I am so glad he did this, how effective the Coast Guard was during Hurricane Katrina, and I understand that GSA also anticipated the direction of the storm and secured Federal buildings, and being the Ranking Member of the Veterans' Committee, I learned that the VA was to be commended for their response and the follow-up to the storm, so there were Federal agencies that worked out well there. The lesson may be that government can function well and our task is to ensure it functions better, so we look forward to that, but I was really impressed by all of your statements. Mr. Regan, you said that on Monday, August 29, Starwood Hotels began lining up buses to evacuate the hotel guests at the Sheraton. Why did you take the initiative to look for buses before you knew the levees had failed? Mr. Regan. Well, really, we started lining up the buses after the levees had failed. The levees started failing at 11 o'clock on Monday. As soon as the issue happened when the storm came through at 6 a.m. and then hit New Orleans about 9:30, 10 o'clock, the levees started to breach at 11 a.m. There was no communication, that was one of the things, but we did have communication with the police department. When we knew the levees were breached, we knew the opportunity was going to be minimal to be able to get buses to get our people out. Senator Akaka. You also decided to evacuate your guests rather than relocate them to the Superdome. Mr. Regan. Right. Senator Akaka. How did you know that the Superdome was at capacity, even though local officials kept sending people there? Mr. Regan. Well, the way that we knew that the Superdome was pretty much at capacity is because they started floating them over to the convention center. That was the backup, apparently, for the Superdome. So when they started sending people to the convention center and we had people walking up Canal Street who were being told, no, you have to go to the convention center because the Superdome is full, and that is what people were being told, we decided that it was better to evacuate our people out of the city because we felt like it would be a burden put on the city itself. Senator Akaka. Mr. Jackson, you have described how Wal-Mart response teams are deployed to disaster areas to secure Wal- Mart stores. How many response teams does Wal-Mart have nationally and are these permanent teams or are team members redeployed from other positions in Wal-Mart when a disaster occurs? Mr. Jackson. We actually utilize the existing structure that we have in place across the Nation and actually around the globe. We use a pseudo incident command process similar to NIMS or the ICS systems that are typically used, but with local incident management teams really being representatives of those facilities in which they operate normally as well as members of the asset protection teams and loss prevention teams. So, long story short, the teams are representatives of the people that normally function in that area, and so the number of teams is really not as much the answer to the question as is the structure that is in place to be able to develop teams based upon the scope and size of the disaster itself. Senator Akaka. It would be useful to know if other businesses have similar response teams to respond to disasters. Mr. Ratcliffe, you discussed the importance of Mississippi Power's hurricane recovery plan and the fact that the plan is regularly exercised and revised. However, one of your storm directors was quoted in the press as saying the plan is not utilized by employees during a disaster and that he has not reviewed the plan in years. I am trying to understand the extent to which your plan contributed to your successful response efforts because many government agencies that faltered during Hurricane Katrina also had response plans. Would you please comment on the storm director's remarks? Mr. Ratcliffe. Senator, I think the key to any planning is the drilling or the rehearsing of the plan. A lot of folks write plans and put them on the shelf, but if you don't actually force yourself to go through the practice exercise, the drill itself, the plan is not much good. You learn a lot in the practice exercise. So to the extent we force ourselves to do that every year in anticipation of the hurricane season, we actually work through the response so that our people don't have to try to go find the book on the shelf. They have been through it. They know what the response is by firsthand experience. I think that is why the person responded, he hadn't looked at the book. He knew what to do because he had already rehearsed the drill. Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. My time has expired. Chairman Collins. Thank you. I want to follow up on Senator Voinovich's question to you about your contacts with the Department of Homeland Security. When we wrote the law creating the Department of Homeland Security, we specifically created an office to be a liaison with the private sector. In addition, the law provides for a Private Sector Advisory Council, and it is because we wanted DHS to have a robust relationship with major players in the private sector when it comes to disaster preparedness and response and many other issues that the Department is involved with. To the best of your knowledge, does your company have an ongoing relationship with the Department of Homeland Security? We will start with you, Mr. Ratcliffe. Mr. Ratcliffe. We do, and we have been contacted and have interfaced. One of the things that we have done in our industry is look at critical infrastructure and had conversations with Homeland Security about what infrastructure is critical and how should we try to prepare for protecting that infrastructure going forward. So there is not only with our company, but with our industry, a routine interface. Chairman Collins. Mr. Litow. Mr. Litow. Yes, we do have regular contact with the Department, and we do have contracts with them, and we work with them regularly. Chairman Collins. Mr. Regan. Mr. Regan. We don't, to my knowledge. Chairman Collins. Mr. Jackson. Mr. Jackson. I believe you are referring to the Private Sector Office of the Department of Homeland Security. Chairman Collins. Yes. Mr. Jackson. We have frequent communications with them, and during Hurricane Katrina, multiple calls coming into our emergency operations center from Al Martinez-Fonz's group, Rich Cooper, and some of the other players from the Private Sector Office. Chairman Collins. If you do have that kind of relationship, which I would hope that you would, I am trying to figure out why the Department doesn't tap into your expertise more. Mr. Jackson, staying with you for a moment, each of the members of this panel have specialized expertise, goods, or services that were really needed in the response to Katrina. Is there anything that you saw a need for and actually offered to government at any level, and yet that was not accepted? Mr. Jackson. Mr. Jackson. I don't know necessarily that we stated certain quantities, but we did reach out across all levels of government and said, these are the resources we can provide. Normally, during a disaster, we work on a basis where we want the agency to ask us for what they need and then we will try to procure that or deliver that to them so that they are not getting things that they don't need because they didn't ask. But I am not aware of any situation where we offered resources and that they weren't accepted or at least discussed. Chairman Collins. Mr. Regan. Mr. Regan. Yes. I am trying to rack my brain, but I don't believe there was anything during the period of time that I was there that they turned down that we offered. Chairman Collins. Mr. Litow. Mr. Litow. Yes. We did offer to provide the kind of communications network that we used after the tsunami in South Asia, and we were told that they had other priorities and they went down the list and selected other things. Chairman Collins. And yet the lack of a communications network greatly hampered the response. Mr. Ratcliffe, your situation is a little different, I realize. Mr. Ratcliffe. I am not aware of anything. Chairman Collins. OK. Thank you. Mr. Jackson. Madam Chairman, may I add on to that? Chairman Collins. Yes. Mr. Jackson. There was one resource that we did offer similar to what we did after September 11 and to the private sector. We offered human resources. In the discussions that we had, we talked about possibly utilizing some of our logistics managers to help manage the staging areas or develop a disaster warehouse in that region, and those conversations basically just drifted off. Chairman Collins. Mr. Jackson, following up with you, I mentioned before the hearing the odyssey of the ice, where FEMA was frantically ordering ice and 250 truckloads of it got shipped off to Portland, Maine, not exactly the heart of the hurricane region. To this day, to my knowledge, 150 of those truckloads remain in dry storage. This raises questions to me about how FEMA orders, tracks, and delivers vital supplies. You were contacted by FEMA and asked to provide some supplies, such as water. Did you get the sense that was the result of an assessment of what would be needed, or was it more a frantic search for the commodities that are needed? Mr. Jackson. I would say it sounded more like an assessment, and the reason I say that is this. When the purchasing agent from FEMA contacted us, they say, and they have done this in previous storms, we need 100 trailers of water, and immediately, our questions are, well, do you have the logistics network on the other end to offload 100 trailers of water in a timely manner, or do you know what 100 trailers of water looks like? The response normally to that question is, I was just told to go buy 100 trailers of water. So it would seem that--of course, not seeing their plans-- that they have some type of set, you need to go do this and here is how much money you have, as compared to directing it to a specific need. Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Lieberman. Senator Lieberman. Thanks, Madam Chairman. Thank you again, all of you. I was struck when Mr. Jackson and Mr. Ratcliffe, particularly, talked about the fact that you retain private consultants as weather forecasters. To ask the question as directly as I can, does that suggest any lack of respect for or confidence in the National Weather Service or the Hurricane Center? Mr. Jackson. Absolutely not on our end. Senator Lieberman. So why do you do it, just because you need more tailored information? Mr. Jackson. Somewhat. I think from our perspective, it is more about we want to take in as many pieces of information as possible. Senator Lieberman. Right. Mr. Jackson. Occasionally, we utilize modeling software to look at hurricane patterns and such. So it is not just relying on one source for information, is the key. Senator Lieberman. Mr. Ratcliffe. Mr. Ratcliffe. That is the same. Senator Lieberman. The same? Mr. Ratcliffe. Multiple inputs. Senator Lieberman. That is reassuring to hear because we quite correctly praised the Coast Guard, but it did appear to me that the National Weather Service performed well here, too, and, in fact, as you look at the record, they seemed to almost be screaming by Friday night to everybody, including in our government, that this is going to really be bad. Mr. Jackson, as the Director of Business Continuity at Wal- Mart, it strikes me that you might be described as the Secretary of Homeland Security for Wal-Mart, maybe International Security in that sense. Mr. Jackson. I don't know if my boss would like that, but-- -- [Laughter.] Senator Lieberman. Senator Pryor said I could use that title. He will clear it with the management. [Laughter.] I note as we on this Committee look at organizational questions and issues that are raised by Katrina and generally that Wal-Mart has chosen to put a series of major related functions--mitigation, preparation, planning, response, and recovery--in the same department under you. I want you to talk a little bit about what you see as the advantages of that. To be real explicit, if you want to deal with it--you don't have to--there are some people who have responded to FEMA's bad performance in Katrina by saying, the problem is they are in the Homeland Security Department. Get them out. Now, we actually put them there because we thought it made sense to have them with the other disaster preparedness and response, recovery groups. What does your experience tell us about that kind of judgment? Mr. Jackson. Actually, I report to the Vice President of Global Security, which I think more appropriately has that title. Senator Lieberman. He is the Secretary of Defense for Wal- Mart? [Laughter.] Mr. Jackson. If you so choose. But in that, really, where we are positioned in the company is a good place. As far as having those four components under my area of responsibility, I think it works best because all four of those areas are supposed to work together. And so in utilizing the resources that I have available to me, to have my planners talk to the people that are working in the emergency operations center, where they are cross-trained and able to seamlessly work together and develop the best strategies is the best way to operate. As far as the way that the company reacts as a whole, we had total company support from our CEO all the way down and had twice-daily conference calls during Hurricane Katrina with the CEO, his direct reports, and their direct reports, and everyone knew that they would function through the emergency operation and use the structure that was in place. Senator Lieberman. Thank you. Very helpful. Mr. Regan, you mentioned and the record shows that some of the hotels in New Orleans are housing first responders and other government personnel. To the best of your knowledge--I guess a series of questions. First, was there any pre-disaster arrangement for that to happen or was it just fortunate that you stayed in operation and were able to house them? Second, do you think, because you are in this business, that as part of our emergency preparedness, the government ought to have pre-set arrangements for housing the large number of people we are inevitably going to send into a disaster area? Mr. Regan. To answer your question, Senator, the first part was Shaw came in and was looking for accommodations after the storm. So none was done prior to the storm at all. There was no anticipation, I don't believe for that. Senator Lieberman. Yes. Mr. Regan. To answer the second part, I think it would make sense logistically to have housing set up for emergency personnel that can respond directly from one location. When we talked about a command center that I brought up before and why we do that is so that we have a nucleus of a working office so that everybody can branch out from that point. Bringing our people and staying in the hotels is probably the most important thing. We can set up command centers for everybody, and one of the things we talked about in New Orleans was the lack of the planning, and it was more reactionary than it was proactive---- Senator Lieberman. Yes. Mr. Regan [contining.] And that is probably the biggest concern that we had. Senator Lieberman. I agree. I think you just said it, that there wasn't real planning, it was a reactionary approach, and when you do that in the midst of a crisis, obviously, you are running terrible risks, and unfortunately, a lot of people paid the price. Mr. Ratcliffe. Senator, might I add a comment there? Senator Lieberman. Yes, please. Mr. Ratcliffe. One of the things that we learned in the response to Hurricane Ivan in the panhandle of Florida in our subsidiary Gulf Power Company, we traditionally plan on using the existing infrastructure to house restoration and recovery workers, but in the case of a hurricane of the magnitude of Ivan or Katrina, that infrastructure is often destroyed. You have to have Plan A, but in the event Plan A is not available, you had better have Plan B to house your own workforce. We brought in 11,000 people to the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and provided temporary housing. We fed them twice a day. We showered them. We did their laundry---- Senator Lieberman. How did you do it? Mr. Ratcliffe. Well, it is logistics planning. Again, it is lessons learned from prior experience---- Senator Lieberman. Did you bring in trailers or---- Mr. Ratcliffe. We had trailers. We had tent cities. We had caterers. Senator Lieberman. That is impressive. Last question, if I may, and this is something contemporary. I don't believe your company serves New Orleans---- Mr. Ratcliffe. No, sir. Senator Lieberman [continuing]. But we have been hearing--I have been hearing some complaints from people in New Orleans who have had to wait for inspections of their buildings or houses before the power can be restored and the inspections are slow in coming because the personnel in the city is not up and running with adequate resources. Are there similar problems that you are having in your service area, and if so, how are you trying to get around them? Mr. Ratcliffe. Well, let me explain just on the front end of my remarks. Our focus is obviously starting back up the system, getting the poles and wires back up so that we can deliver power is our primary objective. But in situations where you have had potential damage to the facility, it is absolutely critical that you get a certified electrical inspector to go in and make certain before we restore the service, we don't run the risk of burning the house or the facility down because there has been some internal damage to the house. Senator Lieberman. Right. Mr. Ratcliffe. That process is something that we don't do. It is an independent private provider situation. You have to have electrical inspectors available, and that is one of the things that often lags, simply because you don't have a staff of existing people in anticipation of this magnitude of event. So I think that is what you are running into. Senator Lieberman. Let me understand clearly. Are these people who are retained by the municipalities? Mr. Ratcliffe. Private contractors. They are simply qualified electrical inspectors. Senator Lieberman. That you bring on? Mr. Ratcliffe. No, sir. They are in the communities. Senator Lieberman. That an individual home owner might have to retain? Mr. Ratcliffe. That is exactly right. Senator Lieberman. OK. And so part of what is going on here is that there are not enough of them in New Orleans. Same problem in your service area in Mississippi? Mr. Ratcliffe. To some extent, yes, sir. Senator Lieberman. Thank you all very much. Thanks for what you did in the crisis, which helped a lot of people an awful lot, and thanks for the lessons that you provided us with this morning. Chairman Collins. Thank you. Let me ask you each one final question. Our Committee, at the conclusion of its investigation, will be preparing a report with our findings and recommendations. We are committed to improving the Federal Government's preparedness and response so that the slow, halting, and woefully inadequate response to Katrina is not repeated, and we are sincerely committed to that task. What final advice do you have for us on what should be done to improve the preparedness and response at the Federal level? I am going to start with Mr. Jackson and work backwards this time. Mr. Jackson. I think the same things that we learned out of Katrina and that we continue to learn, is focusing on communication. Pro-active communications on the front end are going to lead us to those discussions about expectations and limitations, which we can build that comprehensive plan that is really going to take us to that unprecedented level of disaster preparedness that we have yet to achieve. Chairman Collins. Mr. Regan. Mr. Regan. In our case, we are going through and really evaluating learned lessons again from Katrina, as we have with every other storm. I think the one thing is we look at the process of how we handled it. We look at the process of our plans, and we change the process of what didn't work, where we adapted to what did work. And I think if you go back from the very beginning and you look at where everything was established, from the breakdown in communications to the breakdown in deployment to everything that happened, you need to go through each one of those plans and determine what part of the process broke down. And once you determine that, you correct that, then you move forward. And I think that is really the most important part from a learning standpoint. It is going back in and finding out exactly what part of the process broke down and correct that part. Chairman Collins. Thank you. Mr. Litow. Mr. Litow. I would say, sadly, we have been through many disasters, and in each of them, whether we are talking about September 11 or the hurricanes or international disasters like earthquakes or the tsunami, there are good examples of best practices and practices that are not so good, and we ought to learn from all of them to be able to prepare a comprehensive plan and strategy, and then make sure that all the various sectors who are called upon to respond have a common set of information. That is public, that is private, that is not-for- profit, and that is the education sector, as well. Get everyone on the same page, understanding exactly what went right and what didn't, and have a comprehensive strategy and plan in place. The next disaster may not be a hurricane. Chairman Collins. Thank you. Mr. Ratcliffe. Mr. Ratcliffe. Senator, I would certainly agree with my colleagues. The only thing I would add would be to try to create a spirit amongst the leadership in the various agencies of cooperation and teamwork and a single mindset to make sure that we are focused on the main objective, which is to restore order and to restore society to some sense of normalcy. To the extent we have leadership that cooperates and is driven by teamwork, we would be much better off. Chairman Collins. Senator Lieberman and I serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and we spend a lot of time talking about jointness. I think what you are all talking about is that jointness needs to exist at the local, State, and Federal level and in cooperation with the private sector. We have learned a great deal from your testimony here today, and I want to thank you very much for sharing your experiences and your expertise with the Committee. Senator Lieberman, do you have any other final comments? Senator Lieberman. I don't, just to join you in thanking everybody here. There is a lot to learn about preparedness, leadership, and the cultures it sounds like you all created, which we did see in the Coast Guard, which is--don't worry about the bureaucracy. If there is a crisis about to happen, let us just go according to our pre-prepared plans and get this done. Sadly, we didn't see that with FEMA, which is supposed to play the major role here, and that is what we have to correct. So I thank you again. Chairman Collins. This hearing record will remain open for 15 days for the submission of additional materials. Your full written statements will also be included in the record, and again, thank you so much for testifying today. This hearing is now adjourned. 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